As international manhunt continues, focus shifts to the victim

René Bruemmer, Postmedia News06.01.2012

Unconfirmed photo of Lin Jun, who was allegedly killed and dismembered in Montreal by Luka Rocco Magnotta. Lin, a 33-year old from China, was studying at Concordia University and hasn’t been seen since May 24.

Luka Rocco Magnotta, 29, is wanted for second-degree murder in Canada for the killing and dismemberment of a man.
/ Montreal Gazette

Police on Friday confirmed the identity of the man killed and dismembered in Montreal as Lin Jun, a 33-year old from China who was studying at Concordia University.

Jun Lin was last seen on May 24 and reported missing on May 29, according to Montreal police. (Facebook)

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MONTREAL — In a murder case so macabre and bizarre all focus has until now fixated on the attention-obsessed suspect and the international manhunt for him, the spotlight shifted Friday to the dead man at the heart of the drama.

Police confirmed the victim of alleged killer Luka Rocco Magnotta was a 33-year-old student named Lin Jun from China, who came to Montreal to study in the engineering and computer science faculty at Concordia University. He was alone in the city, his family 18,000 kilometres away in his home city of Wuhan. He was a well-liked part-time employee at a convenience store.

And he had the misfortune to make the acquaintance of Magnotta.

“We believe the victim and the suspect knew each other,” Montreal police Cmdr. Ian Lafrenière said. “He was not a stranger. This was not a random attack.”

Details about Lin are scant, limited so far to pictures of a good-looking young man smiling into the camera on his Facebook page, also home to snapshots of fellow students at a “Noel party” at the CEGEP du Vieux Montréal.

The owner of the convenience store where Lin worked said he was a responsible employee, appreciated by customers. Kankan Huang said he knew something was amiss when Lin didn’t show up for work last week because he hadn’t once missed a shift since he was hired last August.

“It’s really hard for me to connect these two things,” Kankan, 26, said about Lin and the way he died. Lin was “quiet, not the type to talk to strangers. If you told me this happened to someone who was very sociable and talked to all kinds of people then I wouldn’t be so surprised.

“This is unbelievable.”

A janitor at his apartment building said Lin lived there with a roommate, also from China, and described him as a quiet, decent man.

Just before 7 p.m. on Friday, four men left Lin’s apartment building in Côte des Neiges. Two of the men wore hospital masks and carried large, packed duffel bags with Chinese writing on them. Two others carried a large iMac computer and other items. They did not answer a reporter’s questions about whether they knew Lin. They loaded the items into waiting taxi vans and departed.

The Chinese Consulate-General in Montreal issued a statement Friday saying it is “profoundly disturbed” by the crime and expressing its condolences to Lin’s family.

“Right now, the Consulate is in the process of contacting the victim’s family,” the statement read. Officials are “working closely with Canadian and Chinese authorities to help the family and facilitate their arrival in Montreal to make appropriate arrangements.

“We take this occasion to ask that Chinese citizens and students be aware and vigilant for their safety.”

It was a friend who alerted police on May 29 that Lin was missing. Police required the help of the Chinese Embassy to locate his parents so they could tell them Thursday their son had been murdered.

Foreign Minister John Baird said on Twitter that he spoke to China’s ambassador to convey his “deep condolences on the senseless killing of Chinese student Jun Lin.”

Magnotta is believed to have killed and dismembered Lin, sexually interfered with his corpse, videotaped the crime and posted it on the Internet, and mailed body parts to political parties.

Additional charges were filed against Magnotta at the Montreal courthouse Friday, including two that alleged he mailed the body parts that were sent to Ottawa. The indictment alleges that Magnotta “did act towards [Prime Minister] Stephen Harper and members of Parliament, knowing they were being harassed or being reckless as to whether they were being harassed.” The charge is under a section of the Criminal Code that covers uttering threats. It carries a maximum two-year prison sentence.

In addition to first-degree murder and committing an indignity to a body, Magnotta is also charged with using the mail system “for the purpose of transmitting or delivering anything that is obscene, indecent, immoral or scurrilous,” also an offence punishable by up to two years in prison.

The other additional charge involves the video Magnotta allegedly posted on the internet, in which he is believed to be the person depicted dismembering a body. The charge is part of a section of the Criminal Code called “corrupting morals.”

Police confirmed Friday the murder was committed on the night of May 24 to 25, and that Magnotta flew out of Montreal on Saturday, May 26, to Europe.

Lin’s torso and the foot and hand mailed to the federal Conservative and Liberal parties were discovered Tuesday.

Police would not confirm several reports that Magnotta flew into France, saying they did not want to limit the scope of the investigation.

Concordia University officials identified Lin as an undergraduate student in the engineering and computer science faculty, but would release no other details, citing privacy rules. University president Frederick Lowy issued a statement Friday expressing condolences, adding that counselling services are available for students and staff.

“On behalf of the Concordia community, I would like to extend our sincere condolences to the family and friends of student Jun Lin,” Lowy wrote. “We are saddened to learn of this loss of life and it has affected our community, especially those who knew him.”

Police said Friday some body parts were found in the apartment, but that others were still missing. They don’t expect any more parts to turn up in the mail, Lafrenière said, before adding that police couldn’t rule out all possibilities. Investigators in 190 countries are on the alert for Magnotta, connected through Interpol.

Several news agencies have cited police sources who said Magnotta, who spent time in France in 2010, arrived in that country last weekend.

In a chilling reminder that the suspect is a man who has adopted several aliases over the years, transformed his face with plastic surgery, and registered internet posts detailing how to disappear, police warned that he could be anywhere, including back in Canada.

“He could be in Europe, he could be as far as Eastern Europe,” Lafrenière said. “That’s why for the moment we want to be careful, we don’t target one country. Canadians should be aware of this, because he could be back under a different identification in Montreal.”

In fact, Montreal police boarded an airplane that landed in Montreal from Paris Friday afternoon at 1 p.m., looking for Magnotta, because he had a seat booked under his name, Lafrenière confirmed.

“We had some information that he could have been on board, but finally it wasn’t the case.”

Officers checked the passport of every traveller as they got off the plane, “just to make sure because this suspect can disguise (himself), put on a wig and change his appearance,” Lafrenière said. “So we just wanted to make sure that we weren’t missing him.”

Montreal police have received more than 200 email and phone tips regarding the case since the story broke, Lafrenière added.

Officers were upset that a video of the slaying and dismemberment believed to have been posted by Magnotta, 29, are still circulating online. Police spoke to a site in the U.S. and convinced them to remove it, but another site based out of Edmonton was refusing to take it down, Lafrenière said.

“That kind of surprised me as a police officer and a father of two kids that we had such a hard time getting people to remove that video, especially when you know it’s real — it’s not a movie, it’s a human being getting decapitated in front of a camera.”

Officers with 30 years experience told him it was the worst scene they had ever seen on video.

Websites that post the videos could face charges, Lafrenière said, but for now the focus of authorities is on tracking down Magnotta.

“We need to get him back and bring him to (where he needs to be), which is behind bars.”

With files from Paul Cherry and Max Harrold of the Montreal Gazette, and Citizen wire services

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